EMDR Therapy in San Diego (Telehealth)
For San Diego adults who have already talked about it, already understood it, already read the book — and whose body is still reacting like it never got the memo.
You can know the story of what happened. You can even feel neutral about it in a conversation. And then a tone of voice, a smell, a certain kind of Sunday, will land you back inside the exact old sensation with none of the years of growth between now and then. That gap — between what your prefrontal cortex knows and what your body still believes — is what EMDR is designed to close.
Something about doing this work from your own home, with your own dog on the floor and your own tea in your hand, is regulating in a way an unfamiliar office often is not. For a lot of San Diego clients, telehealth EMDR is not a compromise version of the real thing. It's actually the better container.
The phased approach
EMDR is eight phases, and the first three matter as much as the reprocessing. History and treatment planning give us a map — the current triggers, the touchstone memories, the beliefs you carry about yourself. Preparation and resourcing teach your system the internal cues and containment skills we'll use throughout. Only after that do we target memories, work through them with bilateral sets, and install the new adaptive belief.
Over video, bilateral stimulation is usually a moving cue on your screen or bilateral tapping — either butterfly taps on your own shoulders or alternating knee taps. Both are well-tolerated and effective.
Who this suits — and who it doesn't right now
This suits people who have a supportive-enough current life, a nervous system that can tolerate some activation with skills in place, and a willingness to trust a paced process. It's not the first move if you're in an acute crisis, an active detox, an unstable housing or violence situation, or if you have unmanaged psychosis. In those cases we stabilize first, either together or in a higher level of care.
I do not have a San Diego office. San Diego EMDR clients meet with me by secure video anywhere in California. Your familiar space is part of the work.
Common questions
- Is remote EMDR effective?
- Yes. Video-delivered EMDR has years of clinical use behind it now, with outcomes comparable to in-person for many presentations. The eight-phase protocol is the same. The bilateral stimulation is delivered through visual cues on your screen or tapping cues you follow.
- Is EMDR safe if I've never done trauma work?
- It can be — but only after phased preparation. I will not target a memory in your first session. We spend real time on history-taking, treatment planning, and resourcing so your system has tools in place before we activate anything hard. If your system needs more stabilization first, we do that first.
- What does a session look like on video?
- You're in your space, I'm in mine. We talk about the target briefly, get a baseline of the body sensation and the belief you're carrying, and then run sets of bilateral stimulation while you notice what shifts. Between sets, you give me short check-ins. It's less dramatic to watch than it feels to do.
I am trained in EMDR and use it inside a larger integrative and relational approach. I am not an EMDRIA-certified therapist and I do not claim to be. Individual outcomes vary.